By Piers Morgan On Sport
This was the season when I was
utterly convinced that Sir Alex Ferguson's 24-year reign of
despotic terror was over. And all the signs pointed to his imminent
extinction when, after losing his two best players, Cristiano
Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez, in the summer of 2009, he looked like he
was going to lose his third, Wayne Rooney, earlier this season,
too.
United looked poorer than any
of us could remember from August to November and Ferguson's
numerous enemies began rubbing their hands in undisguised glee at
what seemed to be his inevitable demise.
Then, against all the odds, he
won his desperate fight to keep Rooney. And in that moment,
United's season kick-started again and their manager regained his
mojo.
Turning point: Sir Alex Ferguson convinced Wayne
Rooney to stay earlier in the season
By contrast, Arsenal
went through a reverse scenario.
Arsene Wenger's young
guns played out of their skins for the first seven months of the
season and by February 27, seemed destined finally to end our
six-year trophy drought.
We were in the final of the
Carling Cup, riding high in the league, marching on in the FA Cup
and had just thrillingly beaten Barcelona in the first leg of our
Champions League encounter.
Then BOOM - one of the worst
meltdowns I've ever seen from an Arsenal team. A cataclysmic
capitulation so bad that it still almost defies belief.
The tipping point was losing
that Carling Cup final to Birmingham. I watched that game with a
mounting sense of unease that our glorious charge to silverware had
just hit the buffers - hard. I just didn't see winners in those
Arsenal shirts. I saw a bunch of wondrously gifted footballers with
no idea how to close a deal. And, even worse, I saw a manager who
had no apparent idea of what to do about it.
Meltdown: Arsenal inexplicably lost to Birmingham
City in the Carling Cup final
Just when his
precocious stars desperately needed some Churchillian-style
inspiration, Wenger went missing. While Ferguson fired himself up
for the business end of the season, Wenger sulked, moaned, chucked
bottles and made excuses.
His mood seemed deflated as
much by events off the pitch as well as on. From the moment his
bizarre affair with a French rapper was alleged, Arsenal insiders
say he lost weight, lost his sense of humour and, frankly, lost the
plot.
This is not a great United
side. Even their most die-hard fans would admit that. But whatever
you think of Ferguson, one thing he has always been able to do is
get the very best out of his teams. And he turned this fairly
average United squad into champions through sheer force of his
personality - and astute leadership.
Experience: Ferguson has kept faith in older
players such as Rio Ferdinand (left) and Paul Scholes
(right)
If you ask me the key
difference between Arsenal and United, it's that Ferguson
understood the necessity of having older, experienced men in the
dressing room like Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Edwin van der Sar and
Rio Ferdinand.
Arsenal have none. And that's
Wenger's fault. He got rid of them all - great players like Thierry
Henry, Patrick Vieira, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Sol
Campbell and Gilberto were all sent packing long before they needed
to be.
And with them went the winning
mentality you need to grab silverware. Wenger swapped the
Invincibles for the Vulnerables and that was a big strategic error
which continues to haunt us.
Sir Alex Ferguson has scored
surely the greatest win of all his 12 titles.
